Jim Lehrer, the PBS newsman who is probably most well known for moderating presidential debates, was in the same pool of jurors as me when we reported shortly before Christmas. I didn’t have a chance to talk to him, unfortunately.
One of the folks in my office was on jury duty last month here in Manhattan. He sat on a jury in a criminal case and one of his fellow jurors on the panel was a federal judge. The case went to verdict, an acquittal.
A federal judge in the courthouse I used to clerk in in Houston, who had a well deserved repuatation as a hardass, had a copy of his juror badge from when he was called to serve in state court framed in his courtroom near the jury box. God have mercy on the souls of those in the jury panel who imply to him they believe their time is too goddamn valauble to serve on his jury.